SWITZER, continued

The Parental Dilemma

Many intersexual babies have been unfairly subjected to early gender-assigning surgery simply to put the parents at ease psychologically. It is difficult to imagine the extreme trauma experienced by parents who give birth to children whose genitals have characteristics of both sexes. They may worry about what they will tell their family and friends about their new baby boy/girl, and may worry about explaining to the child at a later age why he or she looks different from everybody else “down there.” Parents of intersexuals most commonly feel uncomfortable even about changing their baby’s diapers and having to deal with the abnormality. Due to feelings of shame, or as an attempt to hide the situation, these parents will often refuse to hire babysitters or to leave the baby with friends, and as a result their social life is sharply decreased. Some parents cannot find it within themselves to accept their child’s difference and are unable to bond to or form an attachment with their child. Parents of intersexuals want more than anything for their children to look “normal,” which is why they give their consent for doctors to perform reconstructive surgery on their infants. The chilling realization of the matter is that the actual goal of early surgeries may be the parents’ emotional comfort, rather than the child’s ultimate well-being (Zucker, 2002). It is completely understandable for parents to want their children to conform to the societal norms and to fit in with other children, however, although the short-term results may seem satisfying to the parents, it is the child that will unfortunately have to deal with the long term results. Parents should wait for the input of their child, and, in the meanwhile, allow their child free expression of interests such as toy selection, clothing selection, friend association, and future aspirations. They must learn to accept their child as his or her personality develops naturally, instead of attempting to force the child into one gender or another. Intersexuals should not be subjected to life-altering surgery without anyone being aware of which gender they most identify with. Therefore, the surgery should be delayed until parents have more knowledge of their children’s interests.

Psychological Effects of Early Gender Assignment

Early surgical intervention is performed on intersexual infants in an attempt to help them lead a normal life. However, early gender assignments can potentially scar a child psychologically. Researchers at the Johns Hopkins Hospital tracked the development of 27 male children born with genital anomalies, 25 of whom had undergone sex reassignment at birth. Surgeons find it easier to assign the child as a girl, construct an opening, and remove enlarged clitoral tissue, than to try to enlarge, reshape, or even create a functional penis. The 25 children who were raised as girls all exhibited male characteristics, which caused an identity crisis and, ultimately, psychological distress. However, the two children who were raised as boys were better adjusted psychologically than the reassigned children were. These baby boys should not have undergone a sex reassignment because of their abnormal genitalia. Instead of allowing the individuals to have the option of surgery, the doctors chose the easiest reconstructive surgery, which was to create a vagina. What was an easy process for doctors, became a long and difficult process for the child. Children who do not identify with their assigned sex can have profound psychosexual developmental delays and deficits, and eventually the kinds of normal encounters with the opposite sex, including dating, are delayed or absent among them (Scheck, 2001). Dr. John Money, on the other hand, in a study of 105 intersex children and adults, claimed to have found that more than 95 percent of them fared equally well psychologically, whether they had been raised as boys or girls. Many psychologists feel that it is psychologically better to operate when the child is younger, and that the individual who is not operated on will have problems in society. However, there has never been any reliable empirical evidence linking genital surgery to better outcomes. If anything, patient forums have documented severe psychological distress amongst some of their members (Zucker, 2002). Many doctors feel that the ambiguous or malformed genitalia of babies should be altered in order for them to adjust psychologically into one gender or another, but a sex reassignment performed too early can damage a child developmentally. Urological surgeons have been heavily criticized for early intervention in these children. For a child to grow up identifying with one gender, yet being forced into another, will without a doubt be psychologically damaging to that child, which is why irreversible gender assignment should be delayed until doctors and parents know more about the child’s interests.

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